NDLEA asks court to stay execution on Baba Suwe’s N25m compensation

Efforts by the popular Nollywood comedian, Mr. Babatunde Omidina, aka, Baba Suwe, to reap the fruit of his court judgment’s award of N25 million has been thwarted by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NDLEA, which has asked the court to stay the execution of the judgment. 

In an application for stay of execution by the agency, moved by its Director of Legal Services, Mr. Femi Oloruntoba, it requested the court to stop the payment of the judgment debt.

It also asked the court to stop the advertisement of the order, ordered by the court on November 24, 2011 pending the determination of the appeal by the agency on December 6, 2011 against the judgment. 


Oloruntoba argued that implementing the court order would amount to preventing the agency from exercising its statutory right of appeal, which is currently pending before the appellate court.

He argued that ordinarily, the payment of the judgment debt would consume half of its monthly available resources, which would eventually jeopardise its operations, adding that the agency was already challenging the judgment in its entirety on appeal.

NDLEA hinged its application on the fact that there exists an appeal and substantial grounds for appeal and that allowing the judgment will rendered the judgment of the Court of Appeal, nugatory.

It further argued that the trial court lacked jurisdiction abinitio to have adjudicated on the subject matter to the extent of awarding damages or make the orders it made.